heart of glass
by vanives
Summary: "And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on." Padmé lives.
1. Chapter 1

Heartbroken; Padmé returns home.

What was left of the Jedi Council entreated she not return. That it would be better to hide. She had placed herself in opposition to Palpatine, and reports of arrests of Senators had already begun to trickle in. Obi-Wan was especially insistent; guilt perhaps had gripped him. She noticed his eyes lingered on the bruising blooming around her throat.

Bail said nothing during these arguments; only promising to take her wherever she wished to go.

She insisted, they relented, and it was decided. Padmé would return to Naboo.

The _Tantive IV_ left her on the outskirts of Theed under the cover of night. She wept openly at its ascension; thinking of her daughter in the arms of her new father, and her son soon to be in the care of his aunt and only thing of her they have is the halved pieces of her japor snippet she'd left with them.

Theed was quiet. The winter season was approaching, and her citizens keep to the warmth of their homes. The moon a sliver of silver in the sky peeking out through wisps of clouds. Padmé didn't need the moonlight to see; her knowledge of the well worn, cobblestone paths of Theed instinctive as breathing.

She cuts through the water gardens adjacent to the palace. With the fountains turned off, the flowers dead, and the trees bare, it looks a desolate, forgotten place. Padmé does not linger.

The painkillers have worn off, and each step is creeping towards agony; her breath the slice of a vibroblade against her throat. Her relief at approaching the house is a physical thing. She enters through the backyard. The gate glides open easily.

A faint light beams across the lawn; someone is in the kitchen. Padmé hesitates only just before she knocks. When the door opens she is greeted by the sight of her mother; eyes wide, hair undone, in her dressing gown, a lit cigarra between her fingers.

Stupidly, she blurted out, "I didn't know you still smoked."

Jobal ignored her, and took in the sight of her youngest. Pale, eyes dull, and drowning in a too big dark cloak. She does not recognize her daughter in that moment. Breathless, she asked, "What's happened?

Words fail her, they stick to the back of her teeth, refusing to dislodge. Padmé swallows; it hurts. A dull throb begins in her chest, and tears threaten. She swallows again.

"Truthfully, mama, I'm not sure where to begin."


	2. Chapter 2

News of this new empire had reached Naboo of course. The Jedi purge; the burning temple, the dead younglings. Horrors sanitized by the media for easier consumption. A galaxy weary of war was easy to persuade that the ends justify the means. She warned her family of the arrests; that they would come for her too.

In the dead of the night surrounded by the drawn faces of her family she divulged this tale as though just a bystander; not a player in a pivotal role.

 _I'm doing this for you. To protect you._

Some secrets are too precious to speak of, and no matter how beloved her family is to her the existence of the twins is even more dear. So, she does not tell her family. Another lie, but she is use to lying.

As for her marriage….Well it's easier if she didn't speak of that at all.

* * *

She is not home too long before Typho finds her. He's wild with worry; spewing forth news of the arrests of Bail and Mon, as well as rumors of her own demise.

She asked if there is a warrant out for her arrest.

"No, but members of the _anti-sedition taskforce_ have already trashed your office, and they've been sniffing around the apartment."

Her gut twisted. She'd survived Mustafar just to end up in prison. Padmé had no illusions about Palpatine's regime; if even the Jedi could fall then there would be nothing to save her. Palpatine could do as he pleased. She swallowed past the ache in her throat, and stands; telling him to ready the ship. It's time to return to Coruscant.

Typho nodded. His eye glanced towards her stomach; no longer swollen with twins. He does not balk, only the clench of his jaw betrayed whatever thoughts he had.

* * *

Her family didn't want her to go.

"Resign. Stay here where it is safe." Sola pleaded.

Padmé had never done what is _safe_. She had always tried to do what is _right_.

* * *

She had an audience with Queen Apailana before she left. The young monarch was too much of a stoic to tremble, but Padmé could see the fear in the tense line of her mouth. With only the shallowest of platitudes did they speak of Palpatine. Now more than ever were they aware of the threat of spies; especially in the court of his homeworld. Padmé is even more aware of how suspicious she herself appeared; her career has been entwined with Palpatine's since the very beginning.

* * *

Moteé waited for them with a transport on a small tarmac near The Works. Her sharp features made even more severe by the pinched expression her face pulled. Padmé noticed the hand hidden in the folds of her cloak; undoubtedly on the grip of a blaster.

She is escorted swiftly to the speeder. Moteé and Typho crowd her in a way she finds ridiculous; though warmed by their loyalty.

Typho returned to his ship: he would meet them at the apartment. Moteé was to pilot the speeder.

"Swiett Concorkill has been executed." Moteé revealed as they took off. A Vurk senator who had signed the Petition of the 2,000.

"On what grounds?"

"Treason."

Padmé suddenly felt very tired. Body sore and heartsick. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes against the glare of the rising sun, leaning back in the co-pilot's chair. She toyed with the heavy broach that clasped the high collar of her dress together. Traffic was heavier the closer they got to the Senate District, and they'd been caught in the morning rush.

Moteé cleared her throat, breaking the silence. "The baby…?"

For one miserable second Padmé couldn't force the lie from her lips. When she spoke her voice was thin. "Stillborn. A girl."

Moteé reached over. Her hand was cool when she placed it over her own; squeezing. A silent comfort.

Padmé opened her eyes. In the distance she could just make out the Jedi temple.

"And Jedi Skywalker?"

She imagined him before her; snarling and unhinged: a clenched fist.

She could still taste ash in her mouth.

"He's dead."


	3. Chapter 3

_In the early hours; the sun bleeding light over the dark sky, she receives news of Bail. Moteé had spoken with his aide: Sheltay Retrac. He had been released and cleared of suspicion after voicing his support and loyalty to the Empire and its Emperor._

* * *

Padmé was shoved into a Theta-class shuttle by two clone troopers and accompanied by a member of the anti-sedition task force; also known as Imperial Intelligence. The binders chafed against bone and thin skin of her wrist. Their fingers dug sharply into her arms.

They'd taken her to the Arrth-Eno prison complex. A grim, imposing obelisk constructed in the early years of Palpatine's chancellery.

Her heart slammed against her ribs as she was marched passed a row of cells; windowless doors with fading numbers painted on. The silence of the place seemed preternatural; as if the void of space itself lingered in these halls. The only noise was the stomping of their boots.

The cell was cold. The walls were bare save the pornographic graffiti and black smears of only Shiraya knows what.

Padmé knows there was nothing else to do but wait. Tears rose once again to her eyes, and furiously she wiped them away.

She was weary of tears.

* * *

Hours later she'd been taken to an interrogation room. There was blood on the floor. And the lights too bright.

When they asked her about her involvement in the plot of the Jedi she lied. Her hands do not shake. Her eyes do not shift. She tells them exactly what they want to hear; exactly the way they want to hear it. She is a good liar. Her composure never falters even as her gut churned.

After the officer left she is certain she had saved herself. There was a moment though, when she hears her own words echoed back to her. A portent of her own fate as she begun to play this dangerous game.

 _"We'd be living a lie. One we couldn't keep even if we wanted to."_

* * *

Padmé was released later that afternoon. Gray clouds hung low. Rain fell gently upon her face.

Hollé and Ellé wait for her. Matching robes of burnt orange; their faces veiled.

Far from the eyes of the prison Hollé whispered a location in her ear.

* * *

Padmé slipped from her apartment cloaked in a black handmaid's robe with a blaster on her hip. The meeting was in a gambling house in the lower rungs. She first had to board a train; taking her far from the Senatorial District. Then, a lift, which took her far lower than she had ever traveled before.

The first thing she'd noticed was the smell; rotting garbage and raw sewage. Red lights flickered above her head; illuminating the dilapidated buildings that lined the street. A Twi'lek woman with bright blue _lekku_ attempted to keep a drunk human man upright as they walked; her heels echoing on the pavement.

Padmé kept her head down. Moving as swiftly as she could: still sore from childbirth, she found the address she was given. Smoke polluted the air; a few Dugs sat around a table playing some card game. A Zabrak sits behind the bar. None of them acknowledged her entrance. She made her way to the last door on the left. She did not knock.

Bail, Mon, Bana Breemu as well as others members of the Delegation of the 2,000 and even some who were too afraid to put their name on the petition litter this dingy little room. A far cry from the ornate offices of the the senate. Now their dealing must take place far below the clouds; hiding from the malicious gaze of their Sith Emperor.

Bail greeted her. His brow, marred by bruising, is stern, but there is relief in his eyes. It feels like a lifetime had passed since their last encounter.

"Padmé, it is time to speak of things better left unsaid."

* * *

Somewhere, far across the galaxy, Darth Vader towered over his master. They stood on the bridge of the Eclipse -the skeletal beginnings of the Death Star before them.

And, somewhere, far across the galaxy, Darth Vader thinks of his wife.


	4. Chapter 4

It was disgustingly opulent. Like a rotting corpse dripping in jewels. No expense had been spared for the grand celebration known as Empire Day. A week long ordeal that had begun with speeches and parades and ended in the Imperial Palace as the Emperor himself addressed his subjects, belaboring the virtues of his mighty Empire.

Padmé had found it unbearable, but bared it she had.

She sipped something sweet, light, but with a kick. She had swiped it from a tray from a passing waiter. Her attention more focused on the vines etched into the long stem of the glass than what Captain-no, _Grand Moff_ Panaka, was saying.

Behind her, Ellé whispered in her ear, "he is looking again, M'lady."

She does not need to ask to whom she was referring. _Darth Vader._ A nightmare made real. A supposed rumor spread by stormtroopers, but his appearance is a shock to the system. Recalled from knocking planets to their knees in deference to the Empire; no one had thought him more than a ghost story.

And ever since she had first laid eyes upon him; his very presence like a threat made true by the sting of a blade; he had _watched_ her.

She knows it ridiculous. How can she see where his gaze lands behind that mask? But she just _knows._ It strikes something of the familiar in her.

"As long as all he does is watch," she murmured.

There is fear, of course, that he knows of what they have begun to call the _Alliance._ So far all they have done is plot; they do not have the numbers for action-not yet, but that Petition of the 2,000 is a stain upon all their heart in the eyes of the Emperor. One misstep, and it's off with their heads.

And Lord Vader will be swinging the blade.

She throws back the rest of her drink, and excuses herself from her colleagues. She wants to be alone. Moteé and Ellé shadow her as she slips through the crush. Making her way through the tangle of oily Grand Moffs and ruthless Generals.

 _Vipers, all of them._

She commands her Handmaidens to be at ease. "Get a drink, mingle."

They obey, but their twin expressions of concern betray their feelings.

"Come find me in ten minutes, and then we can leave."

Without waiting for a reply she ascended the staircase to the mezzanine. The silk train of her gown clutched in her hand, and the tail of her braid tickling the exposed skin of her lower back.

Above them all, Padmé watched. A waitress poured a drink. An Admiral with his palm pressed between the shoulder blades of the elegantly dressed woman beside him. A child dropping a glass. Palpatine whispering in Tarkin's ear. Darth Vader next to him his mask tilted up at her.

Her breath hitched. She looks away.

Feeling foolish she pulls away and starts down a long hallway. Surely if she was forbidden from doing so there would be stormtroopers. It is bare save from the tableaux at the end of the corridor. An original. Taken from the national gallery in Theed. It is of a man chained to a rock as bloodthirsty birds of prey pluck and feast upon his eyes. A famIliar story in Nabooian religion. _The Long Repentance,_ it is translated to in Basic.

Lost in thought, as she studied the exquisite pain marring the face of one of _Shiraya's_ most beautiful and devoted disciples, she did not hear him until it is too late. That steady breathing. The aura of malice.

"Padme."

Heart in her throat, she turned.

He was closer than she would prefer, and who was he to speak her name so freely? Though she would not dare correct him. She straightened her spine.

"Yes?"

Vader steps closer. Hand outreached. She flinched.

Lowering his arm, he gives her his back. She watched as he crossed his arms. Defensive, and so similar to-

"I am...changed, but I had hoped you would recognize me despite all…"

Abruptly, he turned back towards her. Padmé couldn't help the jerk of surprise at the violence of his movement. His placed a hand upon her cheek. The tenderness of his gesture at odds with the anger in his voice when he says, "it seems I am still helplessly naive when it comes to you."

Terror gripped her. There was a frantic energy buzzing around him. His hand trembled. He was unhinged, she feared. But Padmé is still not yet easily cowed. She placed her hand on his wrist and pushed it away. He allowed it.

"I'm sorry, but I think you have me mistaken for someone else."

"Never." There is anger in his conviction.

"I would have remembered meeting someone…" _so monstrous._ Clearing her throat she tried for tact, "someone so tall."

Silence.

His helmet tilted, the hands at his side seem to her as if he is fidgeting. The chain that clasped his cape is askew.

Then, when the quiet between them grew uncomfortable, he spoke.

"I was no so when we first met. A child, and a sly little queen. An improbable meeting in the middle of the desert."

Padmé can _feel_ the color draining from her face. "What did you just say?" Her voice cracked.

"You heard me."

Shaking, she is suddenly freezing. "No...It can't be. They said-he said you were dead."

Those wounds of her heart; tender when prodded, now wept blood once more.

 _You're breaking my heart!_

He moved closer. Hand cradling her face. He wiped away the hot tears that slid down her cheek. She looked at him. Tried to picture the eyes behind them; the face of her husband.

"Are you not happy to see me?"

"I…"

Her mouth is dry. Swallowing hard; she licks her lips and tried to speak. Words abandoned her. She choked on disbelief.

"Anakin-"

His finger on her lips silence her.

"No. Not anymore."


End file.
